Alan M. de León’s Reviews > On Freedom > Status Update

“Acknowledging the existence of another was an act of love.”

“We gain knowledge of ourselves when we acknowledge others. Only when we recognize that other people are in the same predicament as we are, live as bodies as we do, can we take seriously how they see us. When we identify with them as they regard us, we understand ourselves as we otherwise might not. Our own objectivity, in other words, depends on the subjectivity of others.”

“Overtime, beginning in youth, an accumulation of decisions makes us who we are. Then a moment comes when we do what we must because of what we have chosen to become.”

“A free person is an individual, but no one becomes an individual alone; freedom is felt in one lifetime, but it must be the work of generations.”

“Freedom is about knowing what we value and bringing it to life. So it depends on what we can do - and that, in turn, depends on others, people we know and people we don’t.”

“We believe that we can trade freedom for security. This is a fatal mistake. Freedom and security work together… We must have liberty and safety. For people to be free, they must feel secure, especially as children. They must have a chance to know one another and the world. Then, as they become free people, they decide what risks to take and for what reasons.”

“Americans are told that we are given freedom by our founding fathers, our national character, or our capitalist economy. None of this is true. Freedom cannot be given. It is not an inheritance. We call America a “free country,” but no country is free... Only people can be free. If we believe something makes us free, we never learn what we must do. The moment you believe that freedom is given, it is gone.”

“Liberty begins with de-occupying our minds from the wrong ideas. And there are right and wrong ideas… Freedom is the condition in which all the good things can flow within us and among us.

Freedom is not an absence but a presence. Virtues are real, as real as the starry heavens; when we are free, we learn them, exhibit them, bring them to life.”

“If we want to be free, we will have to affirm, not just deny. Sometimes we will have to destroy, but more often we will need to create. Most often we will need to adapt both the world and ourselves, on the basis of what we know and value. We need structures, just the right ones, moral as well as political. Virtue is an inseparable part of freedom.”

“It was essential to remove repression, to gain what philosophers “negative freedom.” But de-occupation, the removal of harm, was just a necessary condition for freedom, not the thing itself… Freedom was a future when some things were the same and others were better. It was life expanding and growing.”